For Bessie, Seated By Me In The Garden

To the heart, to the heart the white petals     Quietly fall.     Memory is a little wind, and magical     The dreaming hours.     As a breath they fall, as a sigh;     Green garden hours too langorous to waken,     White leaves of blossomy tree wind-shaken:     As a breath, a sigh,     As the slow white drift     Of a butterfly.     Flower-wings falling, wings of branches     One after one at wind's droop dipping;     Then with the lift     Of the air's soft breath, in sudden avalanches     Slipping.     Quietly, quietly the June wind flings     White wings,     White petals, past the footpath flowers     Adown my dreaming hours.     At the heart, at the heart the butterfly settles.     As a breath, a sigh     Fall the petals of hours, of the white-leafed flowers,     Fall the petalled wings of the butterfly.     To my heart, to my heart the white petals     Quietly fall.     To the years, other years, old and wistful     Drifts my dream.     Petal-patined the dream, white-mistful     As the dew-sweet haunt of the dim whitebeam     Because of memory, a little wind ...     It is the gossamer-float of the butterfly     This drift of dream     From the sweet of to-day to the sweet     Of days long drifted by.     It is the drift of the butterfly, it is the fleet     Drift of petals which my noon has thinned,     It is the ebbing out of my life, of the petals of days.     To the years, other years, drifts my dream....     Through the haze     Of summers long ago     Love's entrancements flow,     A blue-green pageant of earth,     A green-blue pageant of sky,     As a stream,     Flooding back with lovely delta to my heart.     Lo the petalled leafage is finer, under the feet     The coarse soil with a rainbow's worth     Of delicate colours lies enamelled,     Translucently glowing, shining.     Each balmy breath of the hours     From eastern gleam to westward gloam     Is meaning-full as the falling flowers:     It is a crystal syllable     For love's defining,     It is love alone can spell - -     Yea, Love remains: after this drift of days     Love is here, Love is not dumb.     The touch of a silken hand, comradely, untrammelled     Is in the sunlight, a bright glance     On every ripple of yonder waterways,     A whisper in the dance     Of green shadows;     Nor shall the sunlight be shut out even from the dark.     Beyond the garden heavy oaks are buoyant on the meadows,     Their rugged bark     No longer rough,     But chastened and refined in the glowing eyes of Love.     Around us the petals fulfil     Their measure and fall, precious the petals are still.     For Love they once were gathered, they are gathered for Love again,     Whose glance is on the water,     Whose whisper is in the green shadows.     In the same comrade-hand whose touch is in the sunlight,     They are lying again.     Here Love is ... Love only of all things outstays     The drift of petals, the drift of days,     Petals of hours,     Of white-leafed flowers,     Petalled wings of the butterfly,     Drifting, quietly drifting by     As a breath, a sigh....